Chapter Two
Are you not Entertained?
I woke up to darkness, something metallic restraining me from neck to toe. Something that felt like an upside-down bowl was covering my head. My back stuck to a wall like a cocoon, I couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground.
It seems that they still let me live even after I somehow killed so many of them, but why?
“Man, I’m starving, Cordi?” I thought, hearing my bowels growl.
“BUHAHAHAHA! ETO KROMA BALADIE!” I heard a thunderous voice echo inside the room, I could determine that its source was way up on an opposite wall.
“CORDI!” I shouted, panicking, I couldn’t find the only thing I had talked with in the past few days. Yet nothing came. I felt loneliness, I felt... fear.
I heard a door sliding open, and the sound of rolling wheels followed by mechanical beeping sounds.
Suddenly I felt a rubbery tube enter my mouth, pushing some slimy paste into me, probably them feeding me for something.
With a mad grin, I started sucking the substance like mad, putting everything I had into devouring as much as possible, because I knew I needed energy to be able to do anything. The machine started to clank and beep more frequently, trying to snatch back the tube out from my mouth. I locked my gums on the tube, feeling my stomach bloat. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I wanted to take as much energy as I could.
“BUHAHAHAHA, ETO MAS’ALA BROOMO. HAHAHA,” the thunderous laugh echoed out again. It seemed that I had devoured the entire cell’s food for the day.
I loosened my jaws, and the machine retracted the tube, rolling out of the room faster than it rolled in.
I burped unintentionally.
“MUALA ETO DIAGRO, BUAHAHAHAHA,” the loud voice kept laughing and shouting words that I didn’t understand. I ignored the voice, feeling energy seeping back into my body.
I heard the door sliding again, then a single footstep followed by many others, entering the room, stopping in front of me, Then the man, whose footsteps reached me first, spoke. He sounded like the leader of the group.
“Do you understand what am I saying?” the man said to me in a cold voice.
I nodded, hearing some of the people present gasping in astonishment.
“So, the monster has a brain after all.” The man snorted. “Do you know where you are?” he continued.
I shook my head, so confirming to everyone present that I understood what the man was saying.
“Are you human?” said the man, interrupting the faint murmurs around the room.
I nodded.
The man paused for a while, probably scanning my shackled body with his eyes.
“Can you speak?” asked the man suddenly.
“Cordi! Where the fuck are you?” I thought in desperation, not knowing what to do.
“Oh! You have neither a tongue nor teeth. I bet you can speak, but I doubt we’ll be able to understand anything, but it’s not like it matters now,” said the leader, “But allow me to introduce myself.
“My name is Vega Atifo, and you are in the great colosseum of New Roma, and are about to participate in the next show,” he continued. I could hear a hint of joy in his voice.
“Now I’m going to take you out of the body restrainer. If you do something funny, I’ll separate your head from your body” said Vega.
“CORDIIIII, FUCK” I was shaking in fear. I didn’t know what they wanted me to do, they probably wanted me to fight to the death. Or unleash a pride of lions on me or something. This is a colosseum after all, right?
I nodded to the man, after which a beep could be heard, followed by a rapid clinking noise coming from my cocoon that sounded like shackles being taken off. I fell down from the wall. It felt like I have been hung up pretty high because it took me around four seconds before I hit the ground.
Landing on my feet, I made some of the people present whistle in amazement. I myself wasn’t expecting such a perfect landing.
looks like the legs Cordi had made me grow were somewhat special, and it seemed that I am not the only one thinking so.
“BUHAHAHA ……. Monat’to otto tatalia,” the thunderous voice spoke again, but this last proclamation sounded calmer and much more intimidating, as if the owner of that voice was threatening everyone in the room. His voice carried what felt like bloodlust, after which I heard some audible clinking sounds, probably the men present shaking in their armor.
“Y-Yes Mahaar, you are coming too. How could we keep the mighty Grokati away from this glorious event,” stuttered Vega. He sounded very intimidated.
“A-Are you sure it’s wise to let this m-monster go, sir?” asked one of the soldiers.
“Jack, if he wanted to escape, he would have done it days ago, and so destroy half the colosseum,” answered Vega in his usual old, cold voice.
Suddenly I heard a massive shockwave nearby.
Something huge had hit the ground like a meteor, crashing near where we were standing, followed by the footsteps of something enormous.
“TATALIA!” said the voice owner excitedly. After which it accompanied us out of the room. Into the bloody main event.
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Under the scorching heat of the sun, I was standing on what seemed to be sand, but harder, listening to the booming sounds of an untold number of spectators in the colosseum. It seemed that this arena I was in was way too big judging from the distance the cheering seemed to be coming from. Not far from me stood the giant that was in my cell, Mahaar as the man, Vega called it.
“Welcome! Welcome everyone, to the 781st round of the annual tournament of our glorious Neo Roma, where gladiators from all over the sector compete to the death seeking fame, fortune, and glory!” the loud voice of an announcer echoed across the Colosseum. The cheering became even louder.
“We start the first round of today’s tournament with a free for all match. This year, the number of participants has exceeded our expectations, and before you stand five thousand contenders from all over the sector, moments away from tearing each other’s throats to shreds,” continued the announcer, and was followed by a massive wave of cheering.
“From these five thousand, only 100 are allowed to stand at the end as the winners of this round,” the bloodthirsty cheering of what seemed to be millions of spectators followed this statement.
“Now now, the rules are simple. You stay alive along with 99 other gladiators, you pass the round. The usage of weapons of mass destruction is prohibited, which includes chemical, atomic and antimatter weaponry.
Grenades are allowed, but only ones with a radius of lesser than 10 meters. For the larger gladiators, you are restricted to melee, non-energy weapons, and flying is limited to fifty meters in the air. Compounded contenders are counted as one, for example, if you have a mount or multiple heads, like some of you here I can see, you count as one, simple, right?” stated the funky announcer before continuing.
“Now, Gladiators, I am sure that all of you have your UTDs or universal translation devices. If you break these rules, in less than a microsecond, you will be no more. Simple as that. There is a special team put together from the generosity of Earth’s guardians, the Noran Empire, who will oversee the tournament’s security,” warned the booming announcer’s voice cheerfully.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“The round starts in 3 minutes. SO, LET THE GAMES ... BEGIN!” A massive burst of cheering followed the end of the announcer's speech.
Shit, shit shit shit shit, Cordiiiiiii! I thought while shaking from fear, I wouldn’t last a minute in this death battle.
Just as I was drowning in my fear, a pair of what felt like stony hands, or whatever the hell they were, each the size of a car tire, patted my back, on both sides, cutting off my disturbed thoughts.
“Vraki eto mio. Vitao eto Grokati,” said Mahaar in an assuring voice, increasing my panic even more with his gruff voice.
“2 minutes remaining” a monotonic female voice intoned around the colosseum
I am blind, nearly deaf and my sense of smell isn’t in a better state. I have no hope for surviving. Even if I ran away and hid somewhere, at least some of the gladiators are bound to find me.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, if only the damn AI was here, at least it would’ve given me something visual to navigate with. This shit is hopeless
“60 seconds remaining,” the monotonic voice echoed again.
Ok Adam, calm down and use your brain, don’t panic like an idiot. I’ll try feeling my surroundings first, and it seems that Mahaar thing isn’t hostile towards me if I cou-
“THE BATTLE BEGINS.”
“LET THE GAMES BEGIN!” the feisty announcer screamed following the monotonic female, destroying my train of thought.
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The Neo Roma Grand Colosseum was one of the most popular fighting arenas in the Milky Way. It attracted thousands of fighters and trillions of spectators from throughout the sector each year, let it be a seat at the colosseum, where spectators from wherever they lived, traveled all the way to Earth, costing them a hefty sum of credits. That was the unified currency introduced by the leading empires in each sector a very long time ago.
Wannabe spectators who couldn’t afford the price of a space gateway or an FTL engine, used live holographic and virtual broadcasts to view the tournament.
The colosseum itself was an architectural marvel, designed and built by some of the best Noran engineers, and based on one of Earth’s most wondrous prehistoric landmarks of a long-lost civilization. The circular building spanned seven kilometers in diameter and had the capacity for millions of spectators accommodating all kinds of species from those the size of a fingertip to those the size of a building.
Besides being so large, it was provided with convenient technologies to enhance the viewing experience of watchers. From auto-zooming services tailored to the individual sensory systems of each species watching, to a nearly indestructible defense matrix that covered the whole colosseum, protecting every inch. Adding to that, the usual quality-of-life services such as gourmet delicacies, beverages and even a sexual partner (which had its own private booth) were located in the VIP sections where only the most wealthy and powerful individuals could enjoy watching the fights in total luxurious privacy It was the most impressive fighting arena across the whole galaxy.
Vega, the head of the city’s bounty hunter organization and the commander of the elite unit Spettro, sat in one of these private booths.
Beside him sat his younger brother, Galavie Atifo, captain of the 7th unit of the bounty hunter’s guild. Galavie had his eyes glued to the gladiator who was solely composed of a shaking torso of a man with legs of something else, half of his face covered in an advanced psychic suppression device.
But all that covered Vega’s vision. Along with hundreds of thousands of other spectators was the round-faced, four-armed, gigantic piece of muscle standing next to the armless man. The half-naked Grokati overlord known as Mahaar stood more than 3 meters tall, with shoulders broader than a spacecar, a long bulky torso which supported his four huge muscled arms, and hands that could grab humans like pens. Looking down, two gigantic legs full of muscle supported the creature’s huge frame; it ended with feet even larger than its hands.
The announcer’s echoing voice had just started his regular speech with the crowd cheering at every word. With a wave of Vega’s hand, an interface popped up in midair in front of the duo. This was an interface for the game loved by almost every single spectator in the Colosseum … Gambling.
Basically, for this round, you pick a Gladiator and bet credits on him/her/it. If he survives the round, and is one of the 100 gladiators still standing at the end, you collect the pay off. The odds were different, and thus the profit, between gladiators.
Vega started scrolling through the interface showing each Gladiator’s face, name, species, odds, and how many had already bet money on him/her/it. He stopped by Mahaar’s grinning image and saw that hundreds of thousands of people had already bet billions of credits on him, so his odds weren’t really profitable.
But under Mahaar’s image there was an image of a toothless man with the upper part of his face covered, the edges of his toothless mouth pulled back in utter fear. Vega looked at the face with disgust thinking that the holobots could have taken a more aesthetically pleasing image. Looking at his status he saw that he was categorized as a human named “Unknown”. Someone actually thought it was funny and bet one credit on the poor thing. However, the odds were crazily skewed. So, if this man survived somehow, someone who put enough credits on him would make a small fortune.
“Meh, here’s 1000 credits for the fun of it,” thought Vega, poking the interface.
The countdown had almost finished. Galavie also made his bets, still staring at the creature who had ended the lives of more than half of his unit. As well as almost killing him 2 days ago,
“LET THE GAMES … BEGIN!” screamed the announcer, signaling the start of the massacre.
And the massacre started.
Beside the deafening cheering wave that came right after the announcer’s scream, there were the sounds of rifles charging up, energy swords being unsheathed and throats changing colors from the loudness of the battle cries of the gladiators charging at each other.
Vega stared in awe as Mahaar suddenly grabbed the armless man by the head gently while grinning devilishly and crushing the suppressor with one hand, before charging to the middle of the Colosseum, flexing his quad-armed body and starting his own small scale genocide.
“Motherfucker, “cursed Vega, before turning his head to see the naked, blind and armless man, who looked totally harmless, running around like an idiot waving his stumpy shoulders in absolute panic, the Grokati’s grip didn’t even scratch him, he even didn’t use any of his psychic attacks.
After running around in random directions, it was already over for him before it even starts.
A plasma bullet from a random Gladiator’s sniper rifle hit his abdomen and continued through like it just hit some paper, smashing a hole the size of a man’s head right through the middle of his torso and punching him back a couple of meters. He tottered for a few seconds, and fell on his back, his weird legs moving creepily in all directions.
Vega let out a loud sigh and grunted angrily. He had just lost 1000 credits less than 10 minutes into the round. The thing didn’t even put an entertaining show for him on.
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I coughed and sputtered, and blood started gushing out of my mouth.
I had felt something go through my torso and exit out my back, then the smell and taste of blood covered my senses. My head started feeling light, it was getting harder and harder to think as I spiraled down to blackness.
I opened my eyes, finding myself in my apartment again. Not bothering with my usual routine, I rushed to the living room where the little girl still sat on the couch, twirling a strand of her hair with her index finger.
“So, you’re dying,” said the girl, nonchalantly.
“I am,” I replied coldly.
“You know that if you died, I would also disappear," she said, twirling her hair faster.
“I know,” I replied with the same tone.
“And, do you want that to happen?” she asked
I paused.
“Do you?” she repeated
“You know that since that day, the day the skies turned purple, I haven’t spent a single day without suffering, I am blind, limbless, I can’t taste food, I can’t smell well, I can’t hear well, I don’t even have a Goddamn p-penis, and now? Now I’m dying with a hole the size of a man’s head through me. I got pierced, dismembered and electrocuted, I ate some goo with wires in it for God's sake!” I burst out in tears, pointing at the frozen picture of me on the TV, getting down on my knees, tears pouring out of my eyes. I couldn’t hold my emotions anymore in front of this little girl.
I starting wailing and crying like a baby, thinking about not even being able to die peacefully, sobbing harder as I thought of every situation I had faced.
The little girl came up to me and held my head to her chest, making me cry even louder. She brushed my black hair with her tiny hands.
“You know good things happen to those who wait, right, Adam?” the girl said soothingly before continuing.
“You have no idea how farsighted you are, how strong your limbs are, how sensitive and powerful your senses are, and how pleasurable your penis is,” said the girl bluntly, with a small giggle.
“I had to stop that stupid AI after she shut down your bodily functions. It wasn’t the most effective tactic. Playing dead wouldn’t work anymore. You have to be mentally stronger than that, Adam, that was merely a drop in the ocean of what you’ll have to face.
“But worry not, you have me and this damn AI who’s trying to squirm out of my grip, and you have allies that you don’t really know you have right now. We’re all here with you, supporting you, and will give you all the power you need. But you have to be able to handle that power, Adam. For your burden is not small, carrying the future in you,” said the little girl, still brushing my hair, in a voice full of hope.
“B-But what about this?” I pointed at the TV where I lay motionless.
“It is but a small matter. Don’t pay much attention to it,” said the girl, chuckling slightly, before continuing.
“Now go, show everyone who looked down on you, how powerful you really are,” she said with a cute grin on her face.
I got up, trying to make sense of what she just said. I couldn’t. I was kind of overwhelmed from trying to digest all of it, so I decided to trust that little girl. I had nothing to lose anymore. Actually… I never did.
I looked her in the eyes, before asking curiously, “How old are you exactly, little girl?”
“I am so old you can’t even pronounce the number of years I have lived, and I look like a little girl because you want me to look like one. Now go, time is ticking,” replied the little girl with a giggle, pointing at the TV.
I walked towards the door of the cage, gripping its rusty bars. I asked a question I already knew the answer to.
“How do I destroy this cage?” I said, looking back at the smiling girl. My eyes were brimming with determination.
“Come on, Adam,” said the girl, her grin widening.
I just took what she said as an answer and got out of the cage. The lights dimmed until they became no more.
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The girl stood there for a moment until she saw Adam had left. Tears of joy formed in the corners of her black eyes, looking at the cage bar the man was just holding. It was deformed and she could see the imprints of his hands on it. They were almost snapped.
“Now he’s all yours, Machine Empress,” said the girl cheerfully, a twisted smile on her face.
StealthEdit V2.3 21Mar17, move along -Paranoid author