Brow led Jonas up the path from the arena, through the doors, and back into the populated lobby. There was an odd feeling slowly overtaking his body, and as Jonas heard the cheers from the crowd grow quieter, he understood that feeling to be disappointment. He was upset that he could no longer hear them cheering, and there was a longingness inside him to hear the sound once again. The doors slammed shut behind him and drowned the sound. He and Brow didn’t speak much, but Jonas could see an aura of jubilation that seemed to rise off of him like a visible gas.

“So what does this mean?” Jonas asked, hoping he could get some information from Brow now that he was in a good mood.

“Don’t worry,” said Brow, “You’ll be allowed to sleep in the fighter’s barracks from now on. You’re not a dummy slave anymore, Jonas, you’re a fighter, my fighter.”

“Do I have to?” Jonas felt uncomfortable with Brow laying ownership over him, but it was even more uncomfortable thinking about separating from his two friends and being vulnerable in the same barracks where Wolf's gang slept.

“Seriously?” Brow couldn't believe his ears, “You care so much about those two useless slaves that you would give up the benefits of being a fighter just to sleep near them?” Jonas felt slightly irritated at how much judgment he could detect in Brows’ voice.

“You wouldn’t understand,” said Jonas, “You’re not a slave, you don’t have any friends,” and he half expected Brow to explode in anger but instead the pony-tailed man gave a dry chuckle.

“You’re right, I’m not a slave because I had the intelligence needed to see that trying to survive solo is a fool's errand. I joined the Hurts gang, while you were enslaved by them. You don't need friends, you only need money, power, and a variety of acquaintances.”

“Acquaintances?” Jonas scrunched his eyebrows, “Why would you want acquaintances if you don't plan on being friends with them?"

“Acquaintances won’t take advantage of you as long as you are equal or above them in status,” Brow said, “Friends will take advantage of you no matter who you are,” and Jonas hated the fact he had no retort.

“Well, there's also the fact that Wolf and his cronies sleep in that barracks too."

"Just his little slave doggies," Brow scoffed, "The top-five have private rooms. I doubt they would try to do anything, the fighter barracks has half a dozen guards on duty at all times."

"You really want to chance it?" Jonas was a bit exasperated, "You want to give Thomas Vale another chance at ruining your glory?"

"Shut your fucking mouth," Brow rose a gloved finger and pointed it at Jonas who could see a faint glowing light coming from underneath, "Don't fucking talk about that, just don't."

"Relax," Jonas was exasperated at Brow's temper, "I wasn't insulting you."

"Touchy subject," Brow was still glaring at him as if daring the teenage troublemaker to say something clever.

"Let me ask you one thing, about Thomas Vale," it was a question that had been bugging Jonas for quite a while.

"What about him?" Brow snapped.

"Could you take him?" Jonas raised an eyebrow, "In a fight," Brow subconsciously made a bitter expression as he stared into the distance.

"Not a chance," Brow clenched his gloved fingers, and the glowing became more prominent, "I'm still enough to hold my ground against a top-five," but after reading his body language, Jonas could tell he was lying. Brow was not a strong Sinner.

"So, about the cage?" Jonas changed the subject after getting the information he wanted.

“You can sleep wherever you want,” said Brow as he shook his head disapprovingly.

“Thank you,” said Jonas, “What about my rations?”

“Fuck,” Brow felt like slapping him, “How fucking much do you need to eat? You already have quadruple the rations of a normal slave, and two pitchers of beer."

“I'm just saying that since I’m not moving to the barracks, I should get some benefits for winning the fight and becoming a real fighter," and it pained Jonas to add, "Your fighter," Brow didn’t argue as he pulled open the door to the fight pits and began leading Jonas back to the slave barracks.

“I can’t increase your rations,” said Brow, “It'll look bad if your little slave friends are eating better than some of the fighters, and it will make me look soft."

"How about you do something else for me? It won't cost you a dime," and Brow gave him a curious expression.

"What?"

"Let me move Simon and Johnson's cages so we're facing each other, and I want to be in the corner of the room."

"Fine," Brow shook his head, "What a waste of benefits," but Jonas had only suggested this because he didn't need anything at that moment. He was happy to have just won the fight, and he knew that he could get way better things off Brow in the future, it didn't need to all come at once.

“Deal,” said Jonas, “That’s fine by me,” and he finally found himself being bombarded by questions from his two caged friends that looked as if a huge weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

"Jonas!"

"Good news," Jonas smiled, "I hope you enjoy looking at my face because we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other from now on," there was confusion and excitement on their faces.

"Out, both of you," Brow snapped as he unlocked Simon and Johnson's cages.

"Are we going to the barracks too?" Johnson looked rather excited, but Brow immediately shot him down.

"Fucking worthless slug, do you think someone as untalented as you would ever be allowed in the fighter barracks?" Johnson looked like he could cry, and the only thing Jonas could see underneath all his matted hair was two reddened eyes.

"Jesus, Brow," Jonas looked disgusted, "Just help me move the cages, please," and as much as he wanted to stick up for his friend, doing so would disregard all the progress he had made with his manager that day. Simon and Johnson timidly left their cages and watched as they were moved to an open corner of the room and placed in the shape of a triangle, with their doors facing on the opposite side.

“Hang on,” said Simon, as the realization started to dawn on him, “Shouldn’t Jonas be in the barracks now?"

“Your moronic friend has decided he’d rather stay here in a cage with you fools,” Brow was still a bit disgusted at the choice, "His reward for winning the fight is to have all three cages moved to the area he desired, and so he'll be able to see both your ugly expressions all day."

“At least until I get a private room,” Jonas added, and the truth was he wanted to make sure that Simon and Johnson were out of their cages by then. Both of his friends gave him incredulous expressions of disbelief, and then they rounded on him, calling him rude names and insulting his mother.

“Fuck,” said Jonas, “You think you assholes could be grateful,” but he knew deep down that they were just trying to convince him to leave because they felt guilty. It reminded him of the time his brother had beat him up, just so Jonas couldn't convince Judge Rosenthyme to sentence him to the Underworld. As Jonas stared at their angry faces, and as he watched the spit fly from their foul mouths, he felt blessed for the first time in forever.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“We’ll talk about getting you another match soon,” said Brow as he locked the three slaves back into their newly moved cages, “It will probably be another preliminary fight, the main card is usually reserved for the best ten fighters of each gang,” and he finally left the room, leaving all the slaves to their own devices. Jonas began telling his friends about the fight, the crowd, and the entire experience in general as he tried to recall each gory punch and kick.

“Who was tougher, Ralph, or Javier?” Johnson sat crossed-legged in his cage, and he being able to face both his friends made conversing much easier.

“Ralph,” said Jonas, “But that’s because he has an Original Sin, unlike Javier who was about the same level of strength but lacking anything that made him special.”

“Ralph was much bigger too,” Simon added.

“I’m now sort of used to fighting big guys,” said Jonas, “It’s all about adjusting your attacks, and making sure you don’t cheat your full motion.”

“What do you mean by motion?” asked Johnson.

“When you make a throwing motion, the force always starts from your toes, and makes its way up through your leg, into your hips, past your torso, and finishes at the tips of your fingers,” Jonas explained, “When you’re not used to fighting someone bigger than yourself, you’ll feel inclined to cut your natural throwing motion short because fear of the size difference makes you feel like you’re on guard, and it makes you overthink everything,” Jonas spoke from personal experience.

“I guess that makes sense,” Johnson nodded, “I felt that way with Garth, back then.”

“Me too,” replied Jonas, “Against Garth, Ralph, and Javier,” he recalled his obsession with overcoming their height. He had thought himself at such a disadvantage, but it had been a self-fulfilling prophecy where worrying about the height difference was what had hurt him the most and not the actual difference itself, “Once I managed to find confidence in myself, I was able to see that the size difference never had as much impact as I had once thought.”

“It also helps that you’re pretty strong,” Simon praised as he reminisced on the skinny youth he had first met months ago.

“I’m okay,” said Jonas rather modestly, “My mindset is just stronger than most people, the things I’ve experienced in Hell are exaggerated versions of the things I’ve already been through in my life. Sometimes I feel like my very short life on Earth was just preparing me for an eternity in Hell."

“Does that include being starved, beaten half to death, and living in a cage?” Johnson looked skeptically.

“Very exaggerated versions,” Jonas confirmed, but he didn’t feel like elaborating further.

“I can’t believe you’re not going to move to the fighter barracks,” Simon said, “I thought you would kill to have a chance to get out of that cage.”

“Fuck that, you think I was going to sleep in a bed surrounded by strange, murderous fighters?” Jonas' tone made Simon and Johnson feel silly for even considering the idea. “At least here in this cage I’m protected somewhat, and I’m surrounded by you guys too."

“When you put it that way,” Simon pondered his words, “It would be better to wait for a private room.”

“Exactly,” said Jonas, “That way I can at least lock my door at night, and don’t have to worry about the wolves or whoever trying to slit my throat while I sleep,” and the three of them couldn’t help but wonder how the fighters living in the barracks got a good night sleep. They must have been extremely brave, extremely stupid, or just simply not valuable enough to try and kill. To finish off the night, they enjoyed a great celebratory feast of food made from cooked rats and clicked glasses filled with poorly made ale the color of diarrhea. The next day, Jonas was happy to see that Ahmed was alive and well, and apparently, he had won his fight against Michael Davis.

“I watched your fight from afar,” said Ahmed, “I was quite impressed with how you dominated the second half.”

“The first half was shit,” said Jonas, “I just felt out of place and couldn’t get into a rhythm.”

“It was like that for me too,” Ahmed smiled gently, “I felt completely out of place. That environment is much different than these fight pits."

“The crowd was something else,” Jonas sighed as he remembered that blood-pumping feeling when the crowd had first cheered for him, it had been addictive enough to leave him wanting more.

“We live and die by the crowd,” said Ahmed solemnly, “As did the first gladiator, as will the last.”

“Well said,” said Jonas as he lifted his mug of beer that Ahmed had brought him, their bet still stood even after all that time.

“You need to learn to work the crowd,” began Ahmed, “You’ll quickly see that they can fuel your desire to win,” but just as he was about to explain the intricacies of environmental factors and how they affected fights, he stopped mid-sentence to stare ominously at a hulking figure that had suddenly approached them.

Jonas, Ahmed, Simon, and Johnson watched quietly as the seven-foot-tall Ralph strode over towards their sandy pit. His expression was usually mean, but that time it was completely blank, which made it hard to tell his purpose.

Jonas wasn’t afraid, he strode past his three friends and stepped right in the pathway of Ralph, and soon, the two of them were only a few feet apart with their gazes locked. For a moment, the big man said nothing as he stared deeply at his former opponent, and Jonas couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to be forced to fight the giant once again.

“Can we speak?” His voice was very deep.

“Sure,” said Jonas, “Speak.”

“I want to thank you,” said Ralph as he ran his sausage-like fingers through his tangles of thick red hair.

“For?” Jonas was completely bewildered, as the conversation wasn't going as he had anticipated.

“Bandaging my head, after you knocked me out,” said Ralph.

“It would have stopped bleeding eventually even if I hadn’t,” Jonas said dismissively.

“Then why did you do it?” Ralph tilted his head.

“Err,” blundered Jonas who was a bit lost for words, “I guess I felt a bit guilty towards you, considering me and you never really had any animosity, to begin with.”

“I see,” said Ralph who let out a sudden sigh of relief, “I thought you wanted me to owe you something.”

“Not at all,” Jonas waved a hand, “The fight was over, and there was no point of letting a sparring partner bleed to death,” and Ralph looked surprised at being called a sparring partner.

“Not an enemy?” There was a bit of disbelief in Ralph's expression.

“Of course not,” said Jonas, “Although you run with Wolf, and I think he’s a douchebag, you’ve never gone out of your way to screw with me, have you? No, it was me who went out of my way to screw with you, sorry about that.”

“You wanted to fight me, because you needed practice for your first fight, right?” Ralph asked, and Jonas was getting the impression that he wasn’t stupid at all.

“Yeah, exactly,” said Jonas, “I've never beat a big guy before so I picked the first biggest guy I saw and that ended up being you,” Jonas felt completely awkward.

“That makes sense,” said Ralph, “Did you win against the big guy you needed to fight?”

“I did,” said Jonas, “It was yesterday.”

“Good job. I remember when I got my first win, it felt really good.”

“I’m curious, Ralph,” said Jonas, “Isn’t Wolf going to be pissed that you’re talking to me?” and he saw the big man’s expression go sour upon mention of his leader.

“I don’t run with Wolf anymore,” said Ralph, “They left me to bleed to death, I thought they were my friends,” and at that moment Jonas actually felt very sorry for his former opponent, and he imagined himself being bashed half to death, left on the floor to bleed, and then Ahmed, Simon, and Johnson walking by his unconscious body with their noses turned up in disgust.

“Sorry,” said Jonas, “It’s my fault,” but Ralph responded by giving a deep booming laugh.

“It's not your fault that I was stupid enough to think they were my friends,” Ralph's expression was filled with self-mockery, “You can’t trust anyone in Hell.”

“It was my fault that you were on that floor,” Jonas argued.

“We’re fighters,” Ralph spoke rather gently, “It’s our role to step over one another to test our bones,” and seeing that Jonas wasn’t convinced he added, “I did the same thing plenty of times during my enslavement, it’s just karma. I hurt people, and eventually, I got hurt myself."

Jonas stared up into the little black eyes that belonged to Ralph, and for a moment they seemed much less cold than they had previously, and he couldn’t help but think that maybe the big man wasn’t so bad after all. Ralph stuck out a gigantic hand the size of a baseball mitt, “No hard feelings?” Jonas didn’t contemplate whether it was a trap or not, as he grasped hands with the big man and shook it tightly.

“No hard feelings,” said Jonas, “It was just a bit of sparring,” and while their handshake was firm, neither of them tried to crush each other’s fingers. After a few seconds, they released their hands.

"See ya, partner," Ralph smiled and turned to leave.

“Hang on,” said Jonas, and he was making a weird expression.

“What’s up?”

“If you’re not running with Wolf anymore, who have you been practicing with, and working out with?”

“Oh,” said Ralph, “No one, just me.”

“No dummy slave?” Jonas looked at him in disbelief.

“No,” said Ralph, “I don't see the point in beating up slaves who can’t fight back, it ain't worth it.”

“Want to practice with us?”