The Coliseum of Champions was a true marvel of the space age. Warriors of all walks of life journeyed to Gandron for a chance of glory and infamy in the grand arena of champions. The Coliseum towered and dwarfed any other structure in the city. It was built to intimidate and bring about generations of formidable warriors. The settlement itself was a cesspit of disorder and crime; it was safe for no person who did not belong.

There were no rules for fighting in the Coliseum except for one: No projectile weapons. Women, Men, and children of all ages would compete for glory and the chance to join the infamous Gandron Warrior’s Guild. A noble organization set to bring justice for those unable to fend for themselves. Outlawed by the rest of the galaxy, the planet stood alone. It formed part of no interstellar treaty, law, or community. To the rest of the universe, they were known as the Gandron Thieves Guild. Once accepted into the Guild, a warrior lost all citizenship and rights from the systems they came from. They had to be prepared to leave everything behind.

The Coliseum also served as the permanent residence of both the Warrior King and the Guild. Those who were accepted would join the ranks and take residence in one of the monument’s thousands of rooms. Those who lost and were not chosen were thrown out onto the streets to survive on their own. Only to come back another day to compete for a spot again.

As lawless as the society might have seemed from the outside, they did have traditions and unspoken rules. Some of which were adhered to and others that were broken daily. The punishment for breaking any law was to fight in the arena for five days without end. If the Warrior survived the five days, they would be set free to join the ranks once more. If they died, they served their sentence all the same.

The daughter of the Warrior King was no exception. She broke one of the king’s most important rules. She drank from his cup in the company of the strongest warriors in the Guild. She did it out of spite. Everyone has been invited to witness her sentence in the Coliseum; though a shameful thing to her father, she saw it as an honor to show the Guild the strength she had built with her own training. The Warrior King did not bother to show up for her first fight. He believed she wouldn’t survive her first opponent.

It was early morning, the sun had just broken through the horizon, and the heat was slowly rising. Gandron was a desert planet, barren from east to west and from North to South. They had no agriculture and raised no livestock. So instead, they took from the more prosperous planets what they needed, including their water.

The man stood taller than a shack, broader than two hoverbikes. She had known him all her life; he was a rather pleasant man with very few words. He was saved as a boy during a raid and brought to Gandron to be trained. He was much older than Viha and much more robust. The king saw him as the son he never had; he named him Hergord; it caused much resentment in Viha.

“Why don’t you just give up, girl? Then, the king will have mercy on you.” His voice was deep. It echoed though there was no means for it to do so in the wide-open arena. Viha smiled at her supposed brother.

“You should drink from the king’s cup too; it will enlighten you to the worth you have to that man.”

He drew his swords; they were large and seemed very heavy, very impractical against an undersized opponent Viha thought to herself. Moreover, the blades had engravings on them, it listed all the names of the people who fell by them. There was almost no room for any more, indeed an impressive feat. He had fought many sentences before, mostly his own, and he was fighting Viha on the last day of his current sentence.

She closed her eyes and took a breath for a moment, focusing on the rhythm and movement of her body. Her sword, a small but highly durable thin blade of the most robust metal to be found in the galaxy, Diatanium, was like a feather in her hand. Then, with her left hand before her in a praying gesture and the sword held in her right hand behind her back, she bent down, lifting her guard, ready for attack.

Before she could even get into position, Hergord slammed the sides of his swords together, making a thunderous sound. He charged forward with his entire weight; Viha was smarter though, she remained where she was with her guard up. As the man approached, she thrust her sword forward and gently pointed upwards. Fortunately for her, the large man ran straight into her trap. The blade pierced through the chest armor and into the side of his torso, almost as high as his shoulder. He groaned with pain, stumbling to the ground, trying very hard not to fall to his knees. Blood gushed out from the wound and onto the clear white sand of the arena.

The occasional spectator would sit in the grandstands of the Coliseum cheering on the warriors fighting for their lives; very few would gather on a typical day to see anyone fight. However, on this particular day, the crowds gathered to see the king’s daughter be defeated; no one was rooting for her. When the first strike from Viha came, the crowd was silent. Everyone realized how outmatched the more prominent Hergord was.

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Viha swung around, keeping her eyes on the now-injured man; he gave no sign of giving up and lifted both his swords despite his injury. Although instead, he grinned at her. She could feel her body tense up and be repulsed by his grin.

“You got lucky.” His voice echoed like thunder in the distance. It didn’t seem like the injury slowed him down. On the contrary, fighting for four days straight seemed to have toughened him up considerably. His strength has multiplied tenfold, his durability a hundredfold. Fighting him with such ease, Viha gained confidence; this would be easier than she thought. Her father, Victor Remit, has made her fight many of his strongest warriors; out of fear that she would be killed or harmed, he would stop the fight just before it would turn fatal. However, this time he would not be able to stop her. This man, whom everyone calls her brother, was her father’s strongest Warrior other than herself. Slaying him would make the rest of her sentence easy and make everyone on Gandron respect her.

He ran with a fury in his eyes, bright as the sun peeking through the pillars of the grandstands. Viha readied her weapon once again with her left hand before her. This time she was aiming for the heart. She will stop at nothing to see this day through to the end and the following and the next until she had proven to everyone in the arena that she was the only one worthy of being the champion.

She planned to serve a sentence in the arena all along, craving to fight the best of the best. But, only the most formidable warriors fought against those serving a sentence, and she could not resist the challenge.

This time Viha allowed his blades to connect with her’s. Then, with her agile body and acrobatic reflexes, she gently guided his swords away from her; this angered him profusely. With a show of force, he turned to her with great disgust and slammed his two large blades into the ground, causing the stone floor to crack under the thin layer of white sand. She couldn’t help but laugh. One of the untold rules of battle was to never lift one’s weapon in anger lest you raise your soul to the skies. With amusement, she now realized why it was an important rule to follow.

His guard had dropped profoundly and his weapons heavy; his anger blinded him, making him swing his sword in random directions missing Viha each time. Subtly she would step back a foot or two, duck under his blows, and step forward to avoid his aerial lunges. She was in complete control of the battle. The grandstands around them seemed to be filling up with cheers and noises from the crowds growing ever louder; it was distracting her opponent more.

As young as she was, she stood with her sword drawn, ready for the fight that had been anticipated for years. Her opponent was a brute of a man wielding two large blades, and she only had one small sword; it was a fight for survival.

The brute charged towards her once again, now angered to the point of losing total control, but just at the last moment, she stepped to the side, causing the brute to stumble and fall to his face; she smiled. She was out of breath, and the weapon in her hand grew heavy. It had been a long enough fight; it was time to end it.

“I have you now!” She shouted as she jumped forward and ran towards him. Hergord was just as tired and weak as she was but found it way more challenging to muster the strength to carry on fighting. Then, just before she could drive her sword into his back, a loud voice shouted from a distance, “Halt!” She stumbled forward but found her feet; she recognized the voice. It was her father.

“You have done well. It is time to rest.”

Her sentence was not complete; her eyes wandered around the arena, studying the disappointed looks of the warriors there to see her fight. But, finally, the battle was over; even if they started the next day again, she firmly believed she would still win. Viha knew that she had asserted her dominance enough; Hergord was defeated.

The brute was carried out of the arena by six strong men, Viha was able to walk out by herself. At the gate, her father stood waiting.

“We are going to need all the strong men we have; you can’t go slaughtering everyone.” He laughed as he grabbed her shoulder and pressed hard with his fingers. It did not seem to bother her, though. She didn’t respond to her father; he sighed and stopped her before entering the refreshing area.

“I have something I need to tell you, Viha.”

He looked her stern in the eyes; he was serious.

“It is time for you to move on to something more challenging. This Guild cannot teach you anything anymore. You are the strongest Warrior to have ever walked the coliseums of Gandron, but your time here has come to an end.”

Viha was tired and dehydrated, still catching her breath, and desperately in need of some water. Her mind could not put the meaning of her father’s words in place. She only wanted to move along and recover in peace. But then noticed a man in a black robe approaching them; she had never seen him before.

“Is he here to take me away?” She asked. Finally understanding what her father had meant.

“He is.” He replied with little care. Her father was not a man to distort words and hide their meanings; he was a straightforward man who told things as it was.

She smiled and closed her eyes while lowering her face. Then, after a moment, she looked up at her father and nodded.

“Don’t expect me to miss you.” Her words were cold and genuine; she had always dreamt of someone taking her away from that dreadfully warm planet.

“Don’t expect to ever come back.” He returned her sentiment.

“If I do, I will be coming back to destroy Gandron.” Her words seemed to fade as she turned towards the strange hooded man. Unsure of what challenges lay before her, she embraced the change better than Victor imagined she would.