Zhartacc the Furious licked his ocular studs slowly, clearing them of dust and debris. He maintained his focus on the darting cephalopoid in the street below, and they gave no sign of noticing the movement. Panic had a way of limiting one's perception, he mused contentedly, as he flicked the safety switch on his neural scourer to 'off'.
At ground level, the cephalopoid squeezed itself under a wrecked transport pod, then poked an eyestalk out the other side to scan frantically up and down the length of the street. The last hunter had been chasing it along a horizontal plane, and so it did not dedicate nearly enough time to looking skywards, where this nightmare world's red sun was just beginning to get high enough to bake the Arena's interior.
When next it made to move from cover to cover, it was pounced upon from above.
The trapezoidal shape of the torsoed quadruped slammed it flat against the ground, and it was seized by a pair of clawed waldoes anchored to the hunter's combat harness. They dragged it, shrieking, out from below the being's hefty form, and a metal-and-plastic device was jammed into its central mass.
Then all sense of what was happening to it dissolved, to be replaced endlessly and thoroughly with pain.
Zhartacc chuckled darkly through his broad, lipless mouth as the helpless blob of flesh in his claws writhed and died. Its chromatophores flashed a rather spectacular static as the nerves that controlled them were annihilated by an induction field, and the pitiful thing's limbs flailed wildly out of control.
Technically speaking, it was probably 'dead' within the first moment or two of the scourer being fired. From a more artistic/philosophical perspective, the field projector kept the nerves firing for as long as the induction field held them in its grasp. Scientists had yet to devise a method of asking its victims after the fact, but Zhartacc liked to believe that his scourer kept the victims conscious of the indescribable pain they were in until he took his digits off of the firing stud. The fans sure appreciated a good drawn out scouring.
Finally the hateful little device burned up the last of its charge, and the switch automatically flicked off again as its battery began nursing its capacitors back to full. With a flourish he held the limp, grey blob out to a stand of nearby cameras, and gave a graceful example of his species' equivalent to a bow. Inside the Arena was strictly cut off from external communications to prevent contestant sympathizers from passing on advice or intelligence, but in his own mind he imagined the adoring applause of millions.
He took a moment to bask in his own showmanship, before casting aside the fleshy mass with no small amount of distaste.
->>>-
I tried to suppress a shudder. That was fucking awful to watch. I mean, the cyber-centaur thing is hard on the eyes to begin with, but damn. I was pretty sure it didn't know I was watching, so I eased my body into a throwing stance. Totem tucked into a back pocket, I hefted the trusty rock I'd procured shortly after setting off from my cell. Well, rock is being generous. More like 'masonry chunk'. They weren't big on natural features in the Arena, I guess.
Let's see how that fancy alien tech fares against the former star pitcher of Philip J Fry Memorial High, ugly.
I rifled the chunk at the back of the alien's thankfully-large head. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of watching for a hit. I leapt from the low rooftop I was hiding on to what looked like a broken-down cargo truck. While I was airborn I heard a thunk and a wet-sounding grunt. I thanked my beer league for keeping those 3 years of varsity baseball skills on life support. I hit the roof of the cargo compartment and slid over the side, dropping a few feet to the ground.
I scanned the street. Ugly was listing drunkenly, a shining dark spot now decorating the back of the misshapen lump I'd assumed was its head. I sprinted in its direction, and it must have heard me because it swayed around to face me. It's torture-gun-thing arced widely up towards me.
Too widely, shithead I thought with an entirely appropriate amount of venom. Totem in hand, I swatted the gun out of its fleshy limb with the self-righteous fury of a Very Scared Person who just witnessed a Very Bad Thing and somehow chose fight over flight. I heard something snap in its arm, and internally breathed a sigh of relief. I did not want to wind up like that poor octopus. I allowed my momentum to carry me right into its centre of mass, leveling my shoulder and lowering my hips to allow me to drive upwards and through it. It gave a very satisfying yelp-grunt as I compressed its innards with my weight and speed and anger. I lifted the brute off all four of its legs, nearly going to full extension before pitching at the waist and slamming it down as hard as I could.
I kind of blacked out after that. Not into unconsciousness, mind you. I was just seeing red, and my higher brain functions relinquished their grasp on the controls and let the angry monkey underneath take over.
->>>-
"Look at that, folks. Such patience, such focus. This is why Zhartacc is such a fan favourite that we just keep requesting for him to come back. Not to mention his limitless brutality, of course.
OHHH! What a leap from The Furious. Look at that squishy primitive squirm.
He's scouring it! Fantastic. You don't get that kind of light show just anywhere, people. Only here in the Arena.
Ahh, and he's bowing for the cameras. The consummate showman. That's right everyone, he's doing it all for you. And a generous paycheck courtesy of your benevolent Emperor, Lord Pha'Gouad.
Well, that's another contestant down. If you'll turn your attention to the scoreb-"
The announcer frowned at his feed. He heard the switchboard operator in his commbead asking one of the operators to adjust the camera angle. Zhartacc had flinched heavily, and was leaning oddly off-balance.
"Forget the scoreboard, it looks like another contestant has dishonourably chosen this moment to engage Zhartacc. Not to be alarmed, folks. It's time for him to demonstrate his ruthless... Oh, it's the loudmouth biped. No surprise from me folks, we knew that one was a bad seed from the go. Let's see how Zhartacc deals with... Oh my, it looks like his scourer has been knocked free in the melee.
Zhartacc is down! I don't believe it, this filthy ape must have some dirty tricks it was able to conceal from the science team. Don't worry folks, without claws or fangs I don't think we have much to worry ab...out."
The announcer muted his audio pickups and hissed at the producer.
"Cut to graphics! This is barbaric."
He toggled the mute off again.
"We're going to take a look at the scoreboard for a moment while Zhartacc deals with the attacker. We know there are families watching and we'd hate for the little ones to see something they're unprepared for. Merciless at the best of times, there's no telling what he'll do when he Gets Furious."
mute
"What in the world is this? Can't we do something? I thought we were adding sedative guns to the camera stands in case a contestant ever got too mouthy with them! Well we bloody well should have!"
unmute
"Oh my, what a mess folks. Cold-hearted slaughterer though he may be, we're sure Zhartacc wouldn't want you to see this, so we're going to cut to another one of our hunters."
mute
"I don't care who. I don't care if they're evacuating waste or taking a bloody nap! Cut to another feed or they'll be hunting you in there next cycle!"
unmute
"While our production crew finds us another thrilling hunt let's watch a nice slow-motion replay of that cephalopoid's demise. My my, what a glorious display of hunting prowess."
->>>-
I'm not going to pretend I'm proud of what I saw when I snapped out of my bloodlust. I mean by that point he was pretty much just a leaky bag of pulp with a cyborg harness girdling his remains. Ugly bastard deserved it, though.
I'm glad my inner angry monkey was wise enough to switch from the totem to my rock chunk once it was sure he wasn't fighting back.
I hope I can find a change of clothes before I steal a spaceship and try to fly home, because I'm going to sound crazy enough without the layer of dried gore flaking off of me while I explain myself to the authorities.
I briefly considered taking his torture gun, but then I remembered the way the octopus person (and it was surely a person, probably as scared and angry as me) twitched in his grasp and I stomped the damn thing as hard as I could. I stomped it again. It crunched very nicely. I picked up its fractured remains and tossed it through a broken 2nd-storey window.
Sticks and rocks will do until I find some halfway-humane shooting iron.
The totem, thankfully still working, beamed its blessed guidance. I set off again warily.
->>>-
Even more opulently-accoutred than the announcer's gilded booth, the bounty hunters' command centre was a hive of activity following the loss of one of their own. Though they worked hard to stack the deck against the contestants, it was not entirely uncommon for a hunter to be bested now and again. It was a shock to lose such a fan-favourite, and right at the conclusion of a successful hunt.
A few of the more squeamish technicians had sicked on their consoles. Now they were being berated by Baron Zm'ag'Ma while the rest of the crew stared pointedly at their own, trying to give the impression of absorption in their work to mask their voyeuristic enjoyment of the belittling of their colleagues.
Then one of them saw an opening on his tracker-map, and hurriedly charted an intercept course.
"S-satrap?" it offered hesitantly, reluctant to interrupt the notoriously temperamental Vraaawk noble.
The predatory creature's head snapped around, face still distorted by a vicious snarl.
"WHAT?!"
The tech flinched.
"I-we-I think I have an intercept on Zhartacc's slayer, sire."
He growled with an odd combination of annoyance and eagerness.
"Show me."
"Y-yes, sire. You can see here-"
"Not on your console, you serfshit little worm! Send it to my station."
He turned furiously back to the cowering huddle of techs.
"I will remember this. The cost of repairing those consoles will be added to your familial debts."
The group sagged with shock and horror. They knew not the exact cost of the electronics, but at best they and their kin would be sold into debt slavery. At least one of them suspected they would need to sell themselves to the Arena to compete next cycle to spare their children the same fate.
The Baron stomped back to his console-throne at the centre of the decadent space and savoured the soft weeping behind him.
There is no better feeling than showing a worm its place in the dirt he mused as he sagged into the impossibly-comfortable seat.
He scanned the popup window with cruel glee.
"Yes. Yes, this will do very nicely indeed. This one has a helmet cam."
Bounty hunters were in charge of procuring their own gear, and it was always a crapshoot whether a given hunter would have some form of personal video equipment. The fans loved it, as it provided a more visceral show than the admittedly limited views from the camera stands. Of course, for the really spectacular shots they simply used camera drones, but those were expensive and tasked with following the largest and most destructive contestant species in the Arena.
"Technician, open a secure channel to Hunter ID 0494, we will discretely share the relevant nav-info."
This upstart biped had simply gotten lucky, and it was the Baron's burden to ensure it didn't happen again.
->>>-
The monotonous slap-slap-slap of my feet against the road surface was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a life-or-death struggle.
After more internal debate than I'm proud to admit I sighed and ducked out of the street into a blown-out building. I was terrified by the prospect of another fight, but I knew if I were in the place of the octopus person earlier I'd have liked me to step in a moment or two sooner. I can't help but be haunted by the image of those flailing limbs.
It sounded like the scuffle was taking place up above me, and after a quick scan I padded up a debris-strewn stairwell. I nearly tripped over a hunk of alien concrete, and I looked down to see a sheared-off piece of rebar poking out of it. Unlike basic rights and dignity, it looks like good construction practices transcend civilizations and even worlds of origin.
I reached down and grasped the alloy shaft. Its grooved surface was grippy, and the hunk of masonry on the end was nicely balanced. I worked through a series of test swings, and a grin split my face. Shooting iron it ain't, but the next alien mercenary I beat to death won't last half as long as Ugly did.
->>>-
Skleex Vrt Krixit sprang frantically from ground level to tear across the back of a ruined leisure-bench, her climbing spurs puncturing the rotting textile and pulling tufts of foamy padding with them as she scrambled. She leapt into the air and mere body-lengths behind her the bench exploded into fluff and splinters as the bounty hunter directed the stream of his kinetic shredder along her path.
Then the stream cut off as the device's magazine ran dry. She didn't allow herself a moment of relief as the mercenary cursed and scrambled to insert a fresh ammo supply, instead surging up a sagging curtain and reaching desperately for the lip of a damaged ceiling tile.
The hunter's gun clacked as it swallowed the ammunition, and its charging projector whined alarmingly. Skleex's circulatory system froze with anticipation and panic erased her mental map of the room below as she wriggled through the small gap in the tile. She shot forwards as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the crawlspace, weaving through thin metal beams and long-dead wiring. Muffled through the tiles, she heard the hunter's cruel laughter.
The world exploded. Shredder flechettes filled the musty air and she yelped as more than one bit into her flesh. All around her sparks flew from beams and ducts as the hidden workings of the ruined building's plumbing and electrical systems met the same fate the mercenary intended for her. Tiles fell from the roof as they were destroyed by the violence, or the framework they were anchored to was annihilated.
A rough paw punched through the devastation and wrapped uncaringly around her midsection, wrenching her through the shattered tile and down into the space below. The hunter threw her to the ground and she squeaked as the air was driven from her respiratory tract. She lay there, stunned, as it berated her in its horrid, guttural tongue.
The mercenary plucked her totem from its makeshift cloth harness and regarded it thoughtfully. Kicking her on to her side, he tossed her only hope of salvation carelessly onto the ground next to her. Mockingly, it chose this moment to light up again, its beam highlighting the choking haze of particulate building materials clouding the air. Then an armoured bootheel slammed down with a hope-shattering crunch. She knew it was only symbolic, but somehow the totem's destruction sealed her fate in her mind.
She thought of her mate, dutifully watching over their lair and the precious bundles of germ cells inside. Surely she had been missing for enough time by now that he would no longer be waiting for her return. She hoped he would be up to the task of both guarding the lair and providing food for the voracious germ-packets until they were mature enough to hatch. She thought he might, with some small measure of satisfaction. She had chosen well.
With a fearful sort of resignation, she looked up at the bounty hunter. By the Night Sky, but they were ugly. From the implacable team of monsters that had plucked her from her home, to the indifferent sentries that guarded her cell, to the hateful beings that stalked this bizarre Arena. They all wore different forms, different limbs and colours and textures and sounds. They were all an affront to her sensibilities.
Not that any of that mattered now. The hunter raised its weapon to her, and she stared down the darkened tube defiantly. It barked some final insult, and she gathered herself to project a gout of her digestive enzymes into its horrid face.
At least most of the hunters went without the sealed head protection her abductors and captors had worn.
As it spluttered and wiped at its face something miraculous happened. A being - quarry for the hunters, like her, she suspected - surged into the room with a deafening roar. It swung a makeshift club, as long as her and probably heavier, like it was a nymph's plaything. A chunk of solid material on the end connected soundly with the face of the bounty hunter, and the unfortunate creature's skin parted like ripe fruit rind. The club didn't stop. With a sickening crunch it punched through the hunter's endoskeleton, and gouts of blood and brain matter sprayed out around the irregular shape of the clubhead.
Twitching, the mercenary dropped to its knees. Its digits flexed mindlessly and the kinetic shredder tumbled from one hand.
With a triumphant grunt the newcomer wrenched its club free and swung it again, this time in a broad, horizontal arc. Its odd bipedal frame rotated at the middle as its long legs planted in a mighty lunge, throwing its body weight behind the club and accelerating the bloody chunk of stone to a frightening speed. The dying mercenary offered no resistance, and the rest of its cranial endoskeleton came apart in a spectacular display of violence as the masonry ploughed through it.
Heaving with each immense respiratory cycle, the panting prey-being dropped the club and turned its gaze on Skleex.
Smooth she thought, like a grub whose sensory spines are still in the follicle.
"You OK?" it said breathlessly, its voice distressingly deep to her sensitive ears, but pleasantly resonant by the standards set during her captivity.
She looked on uncomprehendingly, trying not to soil herself in fear.
->>>-
"You OK?" I asked again before realizing I'd probably scared the poor thing half to death.
With a start I backed off, trying to assume a nonthreatening posture. I kicked my club away from us and sat down.
It rose up tentatively, flinching a little. I noticed a few leaking punctures in its fibrous-looking skin.
"You're hurt" I said dumbly, and it shrunk back again at the sound of my voice. Kicking myself, I tried to look smaller.
Hmm.
I looked around, spied its ruined totem. I gestured at it, then fished my own out of my back pocket.
It looked on intently as I held the device up between us.
"Want to share?"
I think then it realized I was trying to communicate with it, because rather than shying away it leaned in a little closer. I smiled, trying to keep my teeth out of it in case that was predator for "You look tasty" where this thing comes from.
I pointed to both of us in turn, then to my totem again. I mimed a bowl-shaped that was hopefully symbolic of the Arena walls, then did a cartoony little hop with the totem that carried it over the walls.
It licked its mandibles hesitantly, still watching closely. I pointed to the two of us again, then mimed the Arena escape. It hopped a little closer to me and, keeping myself low to the ground and hopefully non-threatening, I held out my arm.
It hurt like hell when its little claws dug into my skin, but I suppressed a hiss. Last thing I need is to scare this thing into pissing itself all over me. It might wash some of the blood off, but I don't want to pick up an alien parasite if I can avoid it. It was no heavier than a cat. It clambered up to rest along my shoulders.
I'm glad the exchange didn't take long. If my little totem song-and-dance hadn't worked I would have probably abandoned the plucky creature to whatever beings came to investigate the sound of my battle with the bounty hunter.
I scooped up my club and tucked it into a belt. Then I grabbed the dead bounty hunter's gun. I wasn't sure exactly how it worked, but I'd seen it in action and as far as I could tell it was like a shotgun beam. Probably not lovely to be on the business end of, but it didn't appear to be designed around torturing its victims. A utility harness had a few gunmetal packets on it that looked like the one the hunter had slapped into it before tearing up the roof.
"Hey, I'm going to grab that belt so we can keep using his gun." I said, gesturing at the ammo harness. I'm not foolish enough to think that this thing is going to start to understand me with enough repetition, but I wanted it to know I was doing something intentional and not like, trying to shake it off of my shoulders.
I threw the belt over my shoulder, and thankfully my new friend chose to relocate its grabby claws. I wasn't going to sentence it to death because carrying it around stung a little, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't suck to be its scratchpost.
Then a brilliant idea struck me. It was a bit of a gamble, but I thought I might have a way to overcome the language barrier after all.
I made my way back to the stairwell, and I could feel the little creature questioning my intelligence as I headed up rather than down. This was one of the taller complexes on the block and I needed a view.
Carefully I cracked the rooftop access door and poked my head out.
All clear.
I crept out and checked the door's blind spots, confirming our temporary safety. Padding over to the roof's edge, I scanned the Arena's streets until I found what I was looking for.
Isolated from the roving shapes and far-off commotions of other hunters and contestants - and arguably as important, in the rough direction of my totem's receptacle - a vacated cell sat comfortably in the middle of a minor intersection.
I patted my shoulder to get my frightened passenger's attention, and then I pointed to the next roof over.
"Hold on tight." I said, to nobody's benefit. I clambered up on to the edge, and felt tiny claws tighten their anxious grasp.
I leapt out over the gap.
->>>-
Skleex chittered with concern. The great, clumsy being she was clinging to seemed dead set on getting them both killed. To scale, she could have handled a similar course with laughable ease, even wounded. Her saviour, she determined, must live on flat land.
Solid and heavy, without nearly enough limb or sinew to decelerate properly, every landing caused it to thump painfully into the hardened materials of the rooftops. Some of the longer falls caused it to grunt and limp its way to the next ledge, and the strain was apparent in its strange voice every time it babbled its meaningless words to her.
Still, it was many times her size and had already risked its life for her once. Now it wielded the hunter's strange, impossibly destructive weapon with some degree of familiarity. It was even squishy enough to cushion her small mass if it did slip up and tumble to the ground. She reluctantly supposed that there was no safer place for her to be at the moment.
They were nearly close enough to the ground to render her concerns about falling moot, anyway.
Confusingly, she had yet to discern a pattern to the babble. If it weren't an obvious sign of insanity she would assume the creature was talking to itself half of the time.
Maybe insanity is why it decided to help me in the first place she mused wryly.
Lost in thought, she jerked in surprise when she realized they'd made it to ground level and her rescuer-turned-mount was approaching a softly-lit cell just like the one she'd crawled out of at the start of this hellish day.
She began to grow agitated, but it cruised through the opening and whirled about to scan the area just outside the enclosure. Apparently satisfied, it reached up gently to unclasp the belt she clung to and set her on the ground.
"There we go." It said, a hint of doubt in its voice. To her astonishment, she understood it.
"You - I can... why do your words become mine, saviour?"
The creature chuckled.
"These [waste-excretion apertures] put a [bridge-between-dialects] in the [imprisonment enclosures] so that the [disembodied-voice being] can taunt us before the [play-hunt bloodsport] begins. Please, call me Mark, saviour will go straight to my head in a hurry.'
"I do not understand."
"I saved your life as much to protect myself from feeling guilt as I did for your own benefit. I've witnessed the death of another [bloodsport-playmate] already today and it harrowed me. Our captors are cruel, wrong folk. This is not how people are supposed to treat other people."
Skleex scoffed.
"Please. The sky-monsters descend on light and fire, and kin and neighbours are taken. It is the way of the world."
"Not my world. My [allkin] tired of pain and cruelty long ago. It happens still, as it is written in our [blood-and-germ] to fight and take, but we would rather learn to best ourselves than succumb to [beasthood]."
Its strange, smooth face wrinkled.
"I'm sorry the sky-monsters harry your people. Just because they can does not mean they should. We're going to escape this [bloodsport-boundary] together, and then I'm going to find out how to get you home."
Skleex's circulatory system constricted with pent-up anguish, and despite herself she keened a single mournful cry for her lost mate and young. A strange expression knit her saviour's face.
"I have transgressed against your feelings, I am sorry for bringing up your home."
She shuddered as she collected herself.
"I saw the land shrink as I was pulled into the sky with my captors, I assure you that I could never find my home again. I seek only to survive. To spite my captors and honour my kin by living when we thought all who were taken were lost."
It made the same frightening expression it had made when she had realized it was trying to communicate with her, but this time it bared its mandibles in a chilling addition to the gesture. At least the mandibles were unimpressive. Her killing fangs were bigger, for Daylight's sake!
"Well I can help you with that. I need to get out of here so I can warn my [mentor-matriarch] and [purpose-siblings] about our captors. Once I send that message I will need to wait for them, which could be a very long time indeed. I would be happy to assist you in spiting our captors thereafter. 'The best revenge is to live well' as my people are fond of saying."
She chittered empathetically.
"It is a good thing to say! 'Good wisdom is easily digested', to share a favoured phrase of my kin."
It chuckled again and despite herself she enjoyed the frightful sound. Then its expression changed again. Skies Above, this one had a face for every emotion!
"We need to get moving again. As much as I'll hate to lose the [bridge-between-dialects] I don't want to provide too easy a target for some other hunter."
She shook with laughter.
"Yes, you are too big and noisy to hide. We will be caught trivially and shame our kin."
It offered the hunter's belt to her again and she wrapped herself around its length, twisting out from under it as he slung it across his central mass.
"It is felicitous to make your acquaintance, saviour Mark. I am Skleex. Skies watch over us both."
"I'll take all the watchful eyes we can get. Pleased to meet you, Skleex."
->>>-
Her helmet-comm crackled to life.
"Hunter 0494?"
"You know it is."
"I am uploading a nav-package to your computing suite."
"Now? I'm waiting for a proper shot."
"Take it, and bag your quarry, or leave it and make haste. We have new prey for you."
"But the replay will be miserable. The target is making its way towards the nearest camera stand as we speak."
"The Baron says end them. We have found Zhartacc's killer."
"I should be thanking them, not ending them."
"And yet it is you, not I, who shall reap the fame of the slaying. Leave now or risk the spoor going cold. Neither of us want to earn the Baron's displeasure."
"...Fine" she sighed, squeezing her hunting driver's trigger stud. Through the viewfinder her prey's torso erupted in a geyser of fluids and offal. Her weapon's internals whirred as a new slug was slotted into place, and she reluctantly pried herself from her perch.
With a rustle of camo-cilia she rose from the gun nest, the reliable old driver folding into carry-mode. Her pedipalps clutched the treasured device to her underbelly as she rose to her impressive full height. Her limb-spindles wove gracefully among each other as she worked up to her wind-drinking cruising gait, and with a leap she vacated the quiet rooftop. Grasping claws bit into the concrete of a wrecked office building and she scrambled up the side, her directional arrow twitching in place on her HUD's top-down map as she wriggled her way to the next roof.
New species she thought with far more eagerness than she'd belied in her conversation with the nav-tech.
It shall be sweet indeed to be the first to slay its kind.
->>>-