Naumachia. Naval combat. A battle of the sea. As in Roma, the Dominium put on artificial naval battles between Slaves in constructed lakes. In this case, the Red Sands arena had been heavily reconstructed and altered to turn the crimson sands of one of Sunburst Station’s prime colosseums into a miniature sea. Plasticoid layers and sealant had been arranged over the sands and stone of the arena, waterproofing it and preventing it from rushing out through the trap doors, elevating platforms and hatches dotting the field of battle into the mazelike Hypogeum below the surface. Thus, the sealed and laminated Red Sands arena had been flooded with a deluge of water that rose past the constraining walls of the battlefield. To add true depth and nautical majesty, the first sections and rows of seats had been unscrewed to allow for additional height and an incredible amount of added surface area.

A quarter of the remaining seats that hadn’t been removed and their places submerged were converted into a dry shipyard with a mechanical crane arm that moved ships in and out of the raised, waterless docks and down into the miniature sea. There were a lot of ships in the stands, there would be aquatic games all day and all night and then for a week the owners of the arena would allow for citizens to swim in it.

I regarded the winedark waters warily. They certainly wouldn’t want to let ordinary Servi citizens go for a dive right now. Even with containment measures, the presence of the Beasts that lurked in the bottom, chained up until the second round, were sobering.

I stood on a small craft with blond bearded Velias and red haired Turias. The great crane was creaking over us as the gripping claw descended like a giant’s questing fingers. I prayed to the Skyfather that it would not crack our boat in some way that would cause us to sink.

Luckily, the controller of the crane seemed deft and agile and dexterous with his nimble fingers and eased us up out of our perch in the stands and sent us down, gliding softly into the sea. The waters barely splashed as we settled in. Turias would row our small ship and Velias and I would seek to defend against assaults trying to tip us over or sink us and also launch our own attacks to throw others into the water or destroy their watercraft.

All this for the dubious honor of fighting in the next battle. That one not against human opposition.

There were sea monster Infernal Beasts caged and chained and muzzled underwater with remote electronic unlocking and unleashing mechanism holding them. They were deep enough that so long as you didn’t swim down into their reach, you would be safe. Of course, we’d just be fighting them if we won anyways. I was told they were Krakenlings, Depthdwellers and even a Finned Leviathan.

For the first stage, the rules were simple. You must remain untouched by the water, neither being knocked into the liquid nor your boat capsizing. Last complete crew of three left standing in their boat would be eligible for election to the next round. For the second, we would be given a larger trireme and better weapons. As I have noted before, the organizers and your gladiatorial school’s owner always gave you the necessary tools to accomplish victory. Victory that came so long as you had the quick thinking of a champion and the necessary skills to back up your burgeoning legend.

I examined five other teams of three and began to interpret and analyze the differences between us and how I could exploit whatever abilities I had to pull us to the proverbial finish. We were different Paths and different Ranks, but Copper Imperators and Gold Servi weren’t all that far off. Both moved at superhuman speeds, wielded superhuman strength, sported high tier regeneration that could regrow limbs given enough time and lived for a couple of centuries at the most. There were divergences though, if I looked at them. Imperators, I guessed, had an instinctive sense of combat. I had only been in a couple of street fights, usually with myself being in a higher Rank than the opponents I was fighting, but somehow I kept up with the skill and practiced forms of these Golds who had been training since the beginnings of their Foundations in weaponcraft and bladework and martial arts.

I needed to trust these instincts and let those instincts get the edge on the Servi. I was superior to them as a Copper Imperator, even if it might not seem like it to men like Gaias. It wasn’t as grand a superiority as between a Silver Servus and Gold Servus, where one went from able to bleed out from a gunshot to being unable to be killed by mundane mortal weapons, but it was still a superiority.

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The six teams danced in water in a ring, Gold-powered rowing moving as fast as a motorized boat. One drove towards us, breaking from the established ring pattern and hectic chaos followed as everyone decided to berserk charge each other.

“Blades out, Adrias.” Velias said to me quietly. Turias heard of course with his cultivated senses, but he said nothing, sticking to rowing his oars at the absurd rate his spiritually progressed body was capable of.

“Blades out.” I replied to the blond-haired gladiator. I drew my sword and clinked it against his. These weren’t Keenblades, their purpose would be to strike and bludgeon our rivals into the artificial body of water, not seek to end half-mortal life.

“Into the drink.” I whispered as I imagined men thrown into the depths. If I went in, I would make sure to swim to the top as quickly as possible and away from the locked up Beasts.

“Let’s give them hell.” Turias said.

We smashed up against another team and Velias and I exchanged a discourse of violence and physical might with the other two combatants. I managed to get them off the leaderboard by kicking the oarsmen in the head off their skiff.

The crewmates of each surviving team wisened up though and became skittish, dancing around each other and trying to get in each other’s blindspots.

Instinct wasn’t quite working. What else could an Imperator have that a Servus wouldn’t grasp so innately.

“Audacity. Audacity and arrogance.” I said to myself.

I turned to Velias.

“I’ve got a plan!” I said.

“Is it a stupid ass plan that will get us out of the competition, Adr- Commodas?” Turias asked.

I laughed. “Excellent question.”

“…you going to elaborate?” Turias said.

“Nope. Get ready to balance out the ship.” I said.

“Why would we need to balance out the ship?” Velias asked.

I jumped from the center of the ship with almost enough force to send my feet through the wood of the hull. Instead, the motive energy sent me flying through the air in an arc.

I land on the side of one of the other ships and immediately it began to flip.

That’s my cue. I thought and leapt again just before it tipped over with me still aboard. I imagined taking a picture with an imaginary camera as I caught a last glimpse of shocked Servi gladiators slipping into the frothing liquid. I leapfrogged from ship to ship until all of them were capsized and I was landed on my own ship, deftly catching myself so that we didn’t flip as well.

“You’re like a frog, Commodas.” Velias said. “Leaping from lily pad to lily pad.”

“I’ll take it. I am the Frog.” I said.

Having decisively won the first match, the next began in earnest as soon as the last challengers were soaked. All five other teams were cleared from the field of war.

The larger trireme was lowered into the water by crane from its drydock station in a cleared section of the stands. Velias, Turias and I switched to the larger ship and the crane collected our little, forlorn boat. There were Silver Servi rowing for us on the new one, dipping their oars into the waters that hid monsters below. Chained monsters soon to be unchained.

Infernal Beasts were creatures drawn from the shadows and the depths of the waters and the cracks in the ground. They appeared just outside of wherever mankind lived, even if that was on artificial space stations like the ring of Sunburst Station. Anywhere we were, so they followed. Some said they fed on the natural suffering of the races and Paths and genelines of humanity, always ever present for now and for eternity throughout the Dominium.

They served divinities other than the Twelve who sit on Heaven’s Mountain. Divinities like the Gigantes who faced Olympos in the Gigantomachia, the Teitanes who fathered the gods, the Earthmother who formed Terra, the Deathfather, brother of both the Skyfather who ruled the heavens and the Earthshaker who ruled the seas, he who was the third brother and master of the Underworld. Then there was the Corpsetaker, gifter of the death god’s dust that often coated Keenblades, the Strifesower, she who gave the envious golden apple to the fairest of the godesses, and the Hundred-Handed-Ones and the One-Eyed-Ones. All strange and inexplicable gods that dwelled in chthonic depths and deep holdings. Things alien to mankind. Often violent, often strange, often chaotic.

These were the divinities and spirits that called forth and mastered the Infernal Beasts. In the case of the Depthdwellers, the Leviathans, and the Krakenlings, they were not controlled by the Earthshaker of Olympus, but by Pontas, Primordial of the Ancient Ocean. We would take the role of the Earthshaker’s servants, wielding replicas of his trident provided to us on the ship. Ours would not call forth springs of saltwater or shake continental plates or affix islands to the sea floor, but their Keenblade edges would slice into more-than-mortal monster hides.

A blaring siren came overhead. The Infernal Beasts of the Ocean had been released.

For an awful moment, all was quiet. Then I heard the sound of claws skittering alongside the hull playfully. Then came a childish, high-pitched laugh that sharpened to a shriek.

“Hold steady.” I told the Silver Servi rowers.